1863. In a small Creole cottage in New Orleans, a young Black woman named Stella embroiders intricate maps on repurposed cloth to help enslaved men flee and join the Union Army. Meanwhile, in New York City, a Jewish woman stitches a quilt for her husband, who is stationed in Louisiana with the Union Army. When months go by without word from her husband, Lily resolves to make the perilous journey South to search for him. As these two women risk everything for love and freedom during the Civil War, their paths converge in New Orleans, where an encounter leads them to discover that even the most delicate threads have the capacity to save us.